


corner of your eye

by fathomfive



Series: unsettled reflections (inarizaki supernatural au) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Divorce, Gen, Magical Realism, alternate universe - only child Miya Atsumu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23046766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathomfive/pseuds/fathomfive
Summary: Miya Atsumu is an only child, but he has never been alone.It could go on forever like this: an afternoon full of just the sound of his own breathing, a room where no one enters or leaves. There’s pressure in his head. His ears ring.Atsumu turns his head. In the hallway mirror to his left, his reflection is already looking at him.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Series: unsettled reflections (inarizaki supernatural au) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743277
Comments: 40
Kudos: 241





	corner of your eye

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11656542) by [noyabeans (snowdrops)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/noyabeans). 



> all my gratitude to noyabeans/snowdrops, whose fic nailed me over the head with the inspiration for this weird thing. thank you!

Atsumu sits on the floor in front of the turned-off television, and listens to his mother talking in the other room. She’s on the phone with her own mother, and her voice through the half-closed door is hushed and unintelligible.

It’s been a week since Atsumu’s father went to live elsewhere. Atsumu is seven years old, and his world’s still small enough that he wonders what he did wrong.

It’s just the two of them now, Atsumu and his mom. She keeps telling him to settle down, to not bang doors or run on the stairs, but the house is too big and too quiet and he has to keep moving, or else time slows down and catches him with it.

In the deep, long moments when he runs out of energy to distract himself, it feels like he’s all alone. He’s sitting cross-legged, picking at the carpet. The ceiling fan turns in his periphery. It could go on forever like this: an afternoon full of just the sound of his own breathing, a room where no one enters or leaves. There’s pressure in his head. His ears ring.

Atsumu turns his head. In the hallway mirror to his left, his reflection is already looking at him.

He scrambles back against the couch. The boy in the mirror stays seated, twisting a loose thread from the carpet between thumb and forefinger.

“What is it?” his reflection says.

Atsumu stares. The boy in the mirror raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“What is what?” Atsumu manages.

The boy leans forward until his breath clouds the glass. He has Atsumu’s face and hands and deep-set eyes, and behind them something Atsumu can only guess at. “No, I mean,” he tilts his head, “you wanted something?”

“I wanted someone to watch Galaxy Team Raiders with,” Atsumu blurts. He darts a glance back at the half-closed door. His mother’s voice goes on unbroken.

“Figures,” the other boy says with a sigh. He’s already resettling so he can see the TV from his place in the hallway. “Only if we watch a nature show after, okay? There’s an ocean one on today.”

“Figures,” Atsumu mimics, reaching for the remote. He’s—not afraid. He can’t think of any reason he should be afraid. His surprise is fading fast, replaced by the familiar relief of finding something you needed to find, of meeting someone you knew you were supposed to meet. He’ll remember the boy’s name in a moment. Once he stops thinking about it so hard. He opens his mouth. His reflection’s dark eyes are fixed on his face.

“Osamu,” he says. The name rises to his lips like a bubble to the surface of a pond. “You like the most boring stuff.”

A slow smile spreads across Osamu’s face. “Look who’s talking,” he says. “Raider nerd.”

He says that, but he hums the theme song right along with Atsumu, and his (terrible, very wrong) preference for Raider Green is just as strong as Atsumu’s (normal, extremely right) preference for Raider Red. When the episode ends, he tells Atsumu which channel to flip through for the documentary about dolphins. The sun sinks low, flooding the hallway with orange and gold.

When Atsumu looks over, he sees that Osamu isn’t watching the TV. He’s staring straight into the glass of the mirror, absorbed and distant, one hand tracing shapes on his knee. He leans forward and breathes on the mirror.

In the fog of his breath he writes with patient fixation: two brief marks, a downstroke, diagonal and across, and the angles that circumscribe the open mouth. The kanji he’s chosen is backwards from Atsumu’s point of view, but easy enough to read.

治

_Osamu: govern._

After a few seconds the name begins to fade. Osamu breathes on the mirror and writes the character again. And again, and again, each time it disappears, until the glass between them is covered in half-vanished names.

The sound of the door makes Atsumu jump. His mom comes into the room, moving slow, and ruffles his hair. Her eyes are red.

“Don’t watch for so long, you’ll get a headache,” she says. “I heard your voice. Was someone at the door?”

“I was just talking to myself,” Atsumu says. He glances into the mirror, but it’s only his own face looking back at him, secretive and pleased.

Atsumu’s father doesn’t come home. He goes to Seoul, to work in his company’s overseas office. Over a tense dinner at a family restaurant, he tells Atsumu that this is “a big opportunity” and “the best thing for all of us.” His mother is quiet. Atsumu is quiet too. He sits dead still and thinks about knocking his bowl to the ground or jumping out of the booth and running off down the street.

He catches his reflection’s eye in the window. Osamu shakes his head in warning.

Osamu is nearly always there, in the corner of his eye. In the hallway mirror when he gets ready for school, in the bathroom mirror before bed, in the fleeting reflections of train windows. Sometimes all Atsumu sees in a mirror is himself, but even then, he can’t shake the feeling that Osamu is somewhere near.

“Quit trying to catch me,” Osamu says one night, holding his toothbrush over the reflected curve of the bathroom faucet. “You look dumb jerking your head around like that.”

“If I don’t catch you, how am I going to see you?” Atsumu demands.

Osamu shrugs. “If you look for me, I’m here,” he says. “At least, that’s how it is for me.”

Atsumu fills his mouth with water while he thinks about it. He spits, and says, “You mean, when you try to see me, I’m there too?”

Osamu gets a vague, wandering look. “It’s not _here_ or _there_ ,” he says, after a long pause. “And it’s different for you anyway, I think. No, I’m sure. It’s not the same.”

Atsumu scoffs. “You have no idea how it works, do you,” he says.

“I never said I did,” Osamu says mulishly. “Also you have toothpaste on your chin.”

Atsumu wipes his face with the back of his hand. It’ll be some time before he thinks he knows what Osamu’s talking about. _When you look for me, I’m real._

They have their first real fight a few months later. Osamu only has to make the right face or ask the right question to make Atsumu want to rile him up in kind, but this time Atsumu’s so angry that he doesn’t look at his reflection for days. That’s never happened before. Instead he fights with his classmates and picks at his mom and goes around feeling small and unpleasant and alone.

On the fourth day, he gets sent home early for making a classmate cry. He kicks his shoes off at the door, walks halfway to the kitchen, and sits down hard in the middle of the hallway. In his periphery his uniformed reflection is still, shoulders sloped.

Atsumu turns his head.

Osamu throws himself against the mirror, and the hollow impact makes Atsumu jerk back. Osamu presses both hands against his side of the glass. Atsumu hears the faint squeak as they slide against its surface.

“’Tsumu,” Osamu says. His voice is hoarse. He sounds like he’s coming from a long way off. “’Tsumu, you can’t do that. You can’t do that to me.” He might be pleading, but Osamu never pleads.

“I—where did you go?” Atsumu says.

“Nowhere,” Osamu says. He sits back on his heels, staring fixedly out at Atsumu. His eyes look like two black stones. “Nowhere, the whole time.”

Atsumu crawls over to him, and sits with his shoulder against the mirror so they don’t have to look at each other. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“You have to be careful,” Osamu says. “Promise.”

“Yeah,” Atsumu says. “I promise.”

It’s not the first time someone has asked him to make a promise like that. _Don’t be so rough._ _Don’t say things like that._ _Leave that alone, it’s fragile_ _._ It’s the first time he’s really meant it. It’s the first time he’s realized that in his hands, a lot of things are fragile.

After that, he looks for Osamu every day. They have inside jokes and secrets together, laughing fits and hissed arguments and shouted paroxysms of excitement. Atsumu talks to Osamu more than his school friends some days, because Osamu doesn’t need to have it explained why Atsumu’s dad left or, really, anything else about Atsumu. He never asks, but he understands.

When Atsumu brings up volleyball for the first time, Osamu’s scornful that he even had to ask. Of course he can play, of course he’s very good, what did Atsumu expect?

But like always, he’s vague about the details. Atsumu asks him about his team: “They’re a lot like yours,” he says. Atsumu asks him about the gym he plays in. “It’s the small one with the blue paint,” he says. “You know what it looks like.” Atsumu asks him about his position. “Setter,” he says. “We’re in competition, I think.”

“You wish,” Atsumu shoots back.

“Pretty sure I don’t need to wish,” Osamu says.

Atsumu grumbles. Osamu’s expression is even, but from the upturn at the corners of his mouth, Atsumu knows he’s being smug. It’s all so familiar by now.

Junior high is harder than Atsumu thought it would be, but he becomes his team’s starting setter quickly. The work that follows isn’t easy, because easy isn’t what he wants—what he wants is _more,_ however he can get it. His old friends have mostly scattered. Getting new ones doesn’t seem important. He has people who are impressed by him, he has people who used to try to talk to him and don't any more—and he has Osamu, who’s his best friend. Osamu’s the one whose opinion matters.

And how Osamu would _laugh_ , if he thought Atsumu was stupid enough to be satisfied.

By Atsumu’s last year of junior high, he’s lost any interest he might have had in making nice with his teammates. There’s no one worth talking volleyball with but Osamu. They watch league matches on his laptop, Atsumu on his bedroom floor, half-turned toward his mirror. Osamu sits cross-legged while Atsumu sprawls, resting on an elbow.

Osamu is the easiest person to talk about everything else with, too—except for the questions he won’t or can’t answer. So Osamu is the first one he tells, when he gets the news.

“I had this long call my dad last night,” he says, after the last whistle blows on Brazil versus Argentina. “He’s moving back to Japan in the spring.”

“Does she know?” Osamu says.

“Mom? He told her,” Atsumu says. “He—you know they’ve been talking more.”

Osamu stretches, then folds his legs to his chest, chin on his knees. “A lot more,” he says. “It’s about time.”

“You think?” Atsumu says.

Osamu shrugs. “Isn’t it what you’ve always wanted?”

“Not like ever I thought it’d _happen_ ,” Atsumu says. He squirms, glances in the mirror. Osamu looks patiently back, the same way he’s been looking back for—well, it’s half their lives by now. But to Atsumu it feels like forever. “I guess I wished for it, but you don’t expect things to happen when you wish for them.” It feels childish. It feels like pulling fortune slips, like wishing on stars. “It’s not going to be like it was,” he says.

“Well, yeah,” Osamu says. When Atsumu doesn’t speak or move or look at him, he rocks forward onto his knees and comes close to the mirror. “You’re thinking too much about it,” he says. “Afraid he’ll leave again?”

“What the hell kind of question is that,” Atsumu says.

“He can leave if he wants. You’re never gonna be alone,” Osamu says matter-of-factly.

Atsumu sits up. He can feel himself smiling already, way too wide to look cool, and—well, Osamu can think what he wants about that. “Wow, sappy,” he says.

Osamu rolls his eyes. “It’s not like you need reminding,” he says. “After all, you can’t go ten minutes without trying to get a look at yourself in a mirror.”

“And then I have to look at your half-asleep face instead,” Atsumu says. “Do you have any idea how demoralizing that is for me?”

Osamu lets out a gusty sigh. “You suck,” he says. “You suck completely. And your hair’s not as nice as you think it is.”

“That’s your hair you’re talking about too, you know,” Atsumu says.

“The difference between you and me is I’m realistic about it,” Osamu tells him.

“That’s a funny way of admitting you have low standards,” Atsumu says. Osamu sticks his tongue out, and Atsumu mirrors him.

They’ve grown into the same face, the same build, but whatever else was the same between them in those early days is different now. Atsumu’s grateful for it. Grateful that Osamu’s not him, that someone who’s so completely not him can still understand him so well.

Not that Osamu makes it easy, of course. For starters, he puts way too much energy into remembering every embarrassing thing Atsumu’s ever told him. He’s frustratingly mild, except when he’s enraged, and he has a deep steadiness that makes Atsumu feel steady too—except when it makes him enraged. Easy questions, easy agreement, easy conclusions, they’ve never sated him. That’s one thing they’ve always shared. But he _still_ thinks Raider Green is cooler than Raider Red.

Atsumu knows, deep down where he doesn’t let himself think about it, that Osamu exists because Atsumu looked for him and saw. Whatever he is, there isn’t a word for it. Not _dream_ or _ghost_ or _nightmare_.

But to himself he thinks _brother_ , because he likes the way it sounds.

The end of the school year rushes up on him. Atsumu video calls his dad on the weekends and they stay on the call for a long time, talking and laughing. After that he shuts his laptop and sits in silence, feeling bizarre and restless. Osamu is beside him because Osamu is always beside him. He talks when Atsumu can’t, and listens when he can. When Atsumu gets too loud and too fast, he leans close against the mirror and cuts through the spiral with a joke or a question or a pointed jab.

High school begins. Atsumu joins Inarizaki’s powerhouse team. And six weeks later, his dad moves back to town.

Atsumu’s mom spends the preceding week talking too fast and laughing too loud and staying up too late—her happiness is earnest and brittle, and it sets him on edge. She’s repeated the plan so many times he knows it by heart. His dad is going to come in on a late flight from Seoul on Friday. He will move some things into his new apartment. The next morning he will come over, and the three of them will go out for breakfast together. It will go well. They’re ready to try again. It will be fine.

“It’ll be fine,” Osamu says, somewhere between Friday and Saturday. Atsumu has rolled onto his left side and then his right side and then his left side and still he hasn’t slept. Blue-gray light filters through the curtained window above his bed.

“Yeah, of course it will,” he says dully, sitting up to mash his pillow into a more comfortable shape. It didn’t help the first five times, and it doesn’t help this time. He’s dizzy with sleeplessness. “What do I—God,” he says. “I don’t know how to act. I haven’t seen him outside a screen in years.”

“Act like yourself,” Osamu says. “That’s the only thing you know how to do anyway.”

“I’m not like he remembers,” Atsumu says.

“You’re not seven,” Osamu says.

“I really think I’m someone else,” Atsumu says, “these days.”

He’s sweated into his sheets. He twists violently under his blankets, trying to escape the hot spot, and while he’s kicking around in frustration Osamu slides out of bed and crouches in front of the mirror. His eyes catch the predawn light that silvers its surface, standing out in the dimness of the room.

Atsumu’s head feels like a balloon about to pop. He sits up abruptly in bed, breathing hard. His senses are jangling, nerves and lack of sleep and anger because he should have it together, he should be in control. Osamu presses both palms against the mirror.

He stays like that for a long moment, following Atsumu with his eyes.

“I could come to you,” he says. “If you need me.”

Atsumu gets out of bed with a thump. “You could do that?” he says. For a moment it’s all he can think about: Osamu here, with him, to talk and eat with and go for runs together. “Wait,” he says. “Why now? How is that even possible?”

Osamu gets that vague look he knows so well by now. “I’m wherever you are,” he says. “Kind of. It’s always been just _kind of_. But you could fix it so I was with you for real—you’re strong enough now, I think.”

That raises a thousand questions. But only one of them is important right now.

“You think?” Atsumu says.

Osamu regards him steadily. He’s always looked patient, like he could wait out the universe. Atsumu wonders if this is what he’s been waiting for. “I know,” he says. “It’s you, after all.”

Atsumu walks on his knees to the mirror. He presses his hands against Osamu’s, heel to heel, fingertip to fingertip. He’s lightheaded, floating; he feels untethered from everything but the place where their hands meet. The glass is warm.

He takes a long breath, and watches his fingertips sink into the surface of the mirror.

When he thinks back on it later, Atsumu has a hard time remembering what happens next. It’s all in pieces: dawnlight in the mirror, shards of glass on the floor. Strain and overbalance, surface tension, shattering. At some point he tumbled back and caught himself on one hand. His other hand is wrapped around Osamu’s wrist.

“What are you boys doing up here?” Atsumu’s mom says from the doorway. Behind her, the hall lights stutter. Atsumu pushes off his back hand, and Osamu tugs him upright, and together they turn to look up at her. On the wall beside them, the mirror frame hangs empty.

“Just goofing around,” Atsumu says brightly. “We bumped into the mirror. Sorry.” Slowly, he lets go of Osamu’s wrist.

“Sorry, Mom,” Osamu echoes. “We’ll clean it up.”

Her gaze lands on him and sticks there. For a moment she looks lost, like she’s trying to remember something important. A bit too late, she shakes her head. “The second you two are back under the same roof, something like this happens,” she says. “I guess I can go back down and tell your dad it wasn’t an earthquake. And—oh, Osamu, look at you.”

“What?” Osamu says. He’s still staring up at her.

“You’re bleeding,” Atsumu says.

Osamu looks down. There are shallow red scratches on his palms. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I guess I am.”

“What, you didn’t notice?” Atsumu says, unable to help himself. “That’s a new level of dense, even for you.”

“ _Atsumu_ ,” his mom—their mom—says.

“Yeah?” Atsumu says, as angelically as he can manage. Osamu snorts.

“You two stay here, I don’t want you tracking glass into the hall,” she says. “I’ll get some rubbing alcohol and the broom. After that, Atsumu, I want you to go over it with the vacuum.” She gives him a meaningful look.

“Sweep and then vacuum,” Atsumu parrots obediently. When she goes back down the hall, he shoves Osamu. His hands are shaking. His brother’s shoulder is warm and solid. He sucks in a long breath and lets it go, exhales until it comes out steady.

“Nice going, getting me yelled at,” he says.

“Me?” Osamu says. “You’re the one who pulled too hard and made a mess, I didn’t do anything.”

“You busted it from the inside,” Atsumu says. He tries to shove Osamu again and Osamu swats his hand away, looking imperceptibly smug. “That was all you.”

“Yeah, sure, if it makes you feel better,” Osamu says. “Come on, we gotta clean up.”

“Get the light,” Atsumu says.

Osamu stretches up and flicks the switch. There’s a flash and a pop and the bulb burns out, leaving them both blinking. Glass sparkles on the ground. As they get to their feet, Osamu glances down, with the considering look Atsumu’s seen a thousand times before. He looks down too.

At their feet, the scattered mirror shards reflect the ceiling, the fan, a slice of the steadily lightening sky. The two of them, standing over the glass, have no reflection at all.

**Author's Note:**

> summon your mirror double into reality to finally figure out which of you wins at arm wrestling. I can't think of any repercussions for this


End file.
